A World of Warcraft and Wildstar Resource

Self Discipline: The Wages Of Sin Is Griefers

So I’ve come to an interesting impasse in my new guild, and I know my intrepid readers are just the ones to mull it over (or, failing that, revel in a good failguild story).

After a somewhat stressful raid evening (beating ourselves against the good Professor, that old so-and-so), our guild went on a ten-minute, well-deserved break. I ended up alone in Vent with a fellow guild member I’d run with a few times.

Since he and I were alone, I tried to keep up some conversation to pass the time. I shot the breeze about the raid, and was complimenting the guy’s skills in the instance when he interrupted me with, “Do you ever shut the fuck up?”

I was pretty surprised, but gamely replied, “Ha, sorry, I know I do talk a lo-”

Now, gentle reader, I’m not gonna lie to you. I was pretty mad. But as mad as I was, I didn’t want to say something I’d regret. I turned off Vent without saying anything, or even explaining to the rest of the guild where I’d gone (rude, I know- but man, steam was coming out of my ears).

After cooling off for a few minutes, I sent a tell to the player along the lines of, “I’ve always enjoyed playing with you, but it’s cool if the feeling’s not mutual. But it’s not cool to be rude to me in Vent.”

No response.

Everyone came back from the break. We finished the raid, and I went off to quest with an old friend to simmer down a bit. Eventually- I’m embarrassed to say it- I was so pissed that I put the guy on Ignore.

Here’s where we reach the conundrum: What next?

When we play- and it is the most glorious kind of play, the fun we have in WoW- many of us value the lighthearted camaraderie brought by being a member of a diverse band of misfits who would never, ever, in a million years, become friends in the normal course of our lives. It’s an overwhelming touching thing to me, and lies at the heart of why I play.

Now, for the first time in four years, I don’t want to play any more.

We all face these conundrums in guilds, in PUGs, in life both pixelated and organic. So what do we do when our gaming lives get complicated and snarled for reasons that make both sides indignant and hurt?

Offer it up, gentle readers, and let’s see if we can solve it together.

I’m not into revenge (though that’d be some gooood blog fodder!); I think I’m more just ruminating about the nature of social interactions and how we choose whether or not to pursue them.

The thing that really surprised me the most was that it was on Vent, rather than in chat (where verbal abuse is so common as to be laughable). And certainly I don’t think he would’ve done it if anyone else had been on with us, which just… PROFOUNDLY creeped me out, if that makes any sense??

I am finding more and more oddball stories about the lack of social propiety that exists in game. I am sure we have all had some ripper stories, but it just amazes me that people think it is acceptable to treat others as badly as they do…

Have you read Xeppe post today? As an example, I was horrified that people now use mods to cause problems lilke that….

That is so totally insane! It absolutely makes you wonder if (1) there are more crazy people who play WoW than you meet in the normal course of life, (2) if WoW *makes* you crazy🙂, or (3) this is what otherwise totally normal people are actually like when you take off their internal filters.

it’s bullshit to quit a guild over one fucking person that the GM doesn’t even know about. you should shove your fist down his throat, and then laugh while the GM kicks his fucking ass to the curb, because clearly human interaction isn’t his strong suit, and he should be in the gutter with the rest of the fucking trash.
sorry…people like that make me angry, and even angrier when I know the person it happened to….fuck THAT.

Oh, I wasn’t thinking about quitting the guild- the guild is great! The guild is solid!- it was just such an unexpected thing, *especially* given how nice and welcoming everyone has been, that I’ve been in a total shame spiral about talking so much in Vent. It made me so ridiculously self-conscious (ah, my Achilles’ mouth!) that I haven’t been able to just log on, give the perp the finger and blow it all off like I would normally do.

And the perp in question had been perfectly reasonable up to that point, so I didn’t want to say anything to anyone before I’d had a chance to mull it all over and wonder if I wasn’t just taking a mistimed joke the wrong way. Which very well may have been the case!

I’m always flying off the handle about something, so I try not to say anything, ever, until I’ve taken at least a 24-hour break. That way I can weed out the flimsiest of my shoddy self-justifications and end up with just the half-baked ones.

I think in my original post (on rereading it), I implied it was a guild problem rather than a person problem, which I didn’t mean to suggest at all. I should amend that to read “a good fail-guildmember” story rather than a “failguild” one!

Willow, I seem to have offended you and for that I do apologise. I am not entirely sound of mind at the moment regarding guilds anyway with my recent issues

I was not advocating quitting the guild, I was just stating that “I” would if they pissed me off enough😀 However, I am also very hot headed and always need time away from the situation to ensure I am actually mad…

Ignore him/her. There are jerks in every guild unfortunately and they aren’t worth getting upset about. But in a game like WoW there will always have to be compromises and as long as the people you do like outweigh the ones you don’t, it’s always worth it in the long run.

I think you’ve got a great point; it’s got to be the healthiest thing to do, and of course the issue comes up constantly. Normally I don’t get too bent out of shape about the weirdos, but this particular incident just got me in a sensitive area. But good advice!

Learn the hard way I assure you. When I first started playing I was somewhat over-sensitive. I took a lot of stuff far too seriously and it almost cost me some good friends and a guild I enjoyed most of the time. So now I always advise a relaxed approach.

I suspect like Pilfkin says further down, vent makes nastier somehow. Like he could have just taken off his headphones or made an excuse to go afk for a few minutes rather than actually being abusive.

I think people have more or less already responded to this, but I wanted to respond nonetheless.

I’m an officer – and hell, a human being – and despite some peoplem saying it’s just a game and shake it off.. No. That kind of behaviour is NOT accepted. The whole point of being in a guild is playing together and getting along together.

You don’t have to love everyone in the guild or want to carry on private/personal conversations with them. But you DO have to be polite to the people in your guild. And this person failed that. Badly.

He could have just as easily said – “I’m sorry but I don’t really feel like chatting at the moment, I just want to enjoy this raid break” – or something along those lines. But he didn’t. He chose to cuss you out in a very rude manner.

I don’t care if he never wants to talk to you again. If he wants to be the kind of player that can co-exist with other players in a guild – he has to realise that what he did was wrong and he needs to – at the very least – apologise to you.

But reading the comments from your guild leaders I suspect this will not go without notice. Which is good.

It just makes me sad that people in a guild will act like that. To me the whole idea of being in a guild is getting along and respecting other players. If I dislike someone in guild or they talk too much.. guess what.. I just don’t respond on vent. Or I say that I’m not really up to talking at the moment.

And sorry for my very long comment *lol* I think rudeness is just a sore spot for me.

Wow.. that guy sounds like an absolute prick! (excuse my French) If it was me I’d report it to a trusted officer/GM and hope something can be resolved. If not, then I *might* consider leaving if there’s nothing that could be done because that would make me feel damn uncomfortable. If something can be sorted, then that’d help to bring the comfort levels back. It also helps if you have friends in the guild of course. If you’re really hurt, perhaps a few days break to cool off?

Luckily, the guild officer is weaselly secret blog-reader and stepped in to save the day in the nicest possible way. I did end up taking a few days off for unrelated reasons (okay, the ‘Lost’ finale- don’t judge!), and combined with the really understanding officers and uber-support, I’ve gotten right back into the thick of things.

I just… I’m failing to come up with a comment here. Other than *hugs and nice cookies* because I’d be completely and totally 100% gutted if someone had spoken to me like that.

Being rude in text is something that most of us have (inadvertantly) done. Text is a weird communication medium in my opinion. Hence my addiction to smileys (yes, I know, fodder for teenagers not Moms) because I think it can kinda take a sentence that could be misinterpreted and make it clear that it’s meant as a friendly jest NOT as a diss. I’ve weaned myself of ‘lol’ having rolled on an RP server (and yes, I cringe at admitting at that I used to use it regularly).

But anyways, to actually say something to someone down Vent leaves me, well speechless. I know that I have a perma-waffle switch in my brain that is activated by voice chat but jees, I would hope that if people wanted me to shut up they would be a bit more tactful. Would you actually say something like that to someone that you’re sitting in a pub with? (for example.)

In answer to the ‘where now then’ question, I don’t know. If you haven’t already done so (and I’m mildly late to the thread and it appears that you infact have) I’d make the GM/occifers aware and have some dialogue with them. Because frankly, if (s)he’ll behave to you like this, then they they probably will to everyone. And actually is isn’t acceptable. With my ex-occifer hat on I’d be having serious words with said player. And we also used to have a rule about having guildies on ignore – at the end of the day I don’t think it works and someone has to go (not necessarily you!!!) I’m not sure I could play with someone who I disliked that much.

Exactly, commentslayer! It wasn’t that anyone said something like that- pfft, how many PUGs are ten times worse?- it was that it was in Vent, which is so much more personal (and personable, and Vent’s always fun).

But I’m guilty of Vent transgressions myself- once I forgot to turn off my mic and ended up talking to my husband about a boss we were on in a full-on yell for the Venters. Luckily the content of the conversation wasn’t anything salacious!

I do think you’re right that you can’t have anyone in your guild on /ignore. Thanks to intrepid GM work it seems to all sorted and I’ve taken him off ignore. So that’s a win for working things out!

But thank you for the hugs and cookies! And I wish we had pubs here😦 . It has such cozier, funner connotations than ‘bar’.

I wish Harpysnest would explain HOW to stop being ‘oversensitive’. I’d love to. And certainly after 3 and a bit years of WoW I’m a little more robust than I was (I once left a guild and did nothing in a group for 4 months after someone used the ‘r’ word on a guild run.)
But you can’t have softhearted Xeppe who always has FFs and drums and flasks and pots and will cut your gems for free and give you the uncut if you cry poor and help you level your alt and craft you cloth stuff for free and heal the living daylights outta you on LK because she takes absolute responsibility for her heal targets without Xeppe the sook who will cry on Vent if you abuse her or shame her. It’s a job lot.
And I will not try and turn myself into a trash talking, over confident, don’t-care-about-anybody-but-myself type in order to make it easier for other people to behave badly without repercussions. WoW isn’t exclusively for asshats or people who can ignore asshats. I pay my subscriptions too.
(Wow, sorry, I think I’m still feeling a bit raw.)
Hugs, and double hugs for the lack of pubs.

Once upon a time I would have construed your post as being an unfair attack on myself, as after all, I just said “I” was over-sensitive. For example, had I been on the receiving end of that conversation on vent in 2005, I would have gquit on the spot. There is unfortunately no escaping the fact that I was over-sensitive. Guild mates still joke that I must have gquit macroed. Luckily I was always taken back but with hindsight I really don’t know why. I must have been hellish to play with.

However I think there has to be a happy medium between being a trash talking over confident psychopath who thinks everyone else is subhuman and the over-sensitive over-emotional wreck I was. Or at least I really hope there is.

The point I was trying to make (perhaps badly), was that the person who behaved so rudely on vent was in the wrong. Their behaviour was appalling and under no circumstances when someone behaves like that should you take it personally. They aren’t worth feeling bad about. You should never modify your behaviour around a bully. That’s why I now try to ignore (not literally as I think the ignore tool is rather rude) anyone who makes me feel negative. Life is too short to get upset by somebody throwing their toys out of their pram half a world away. Sure it’s not easy and sometimes I still have to sit on my hands to stop myself from saying or doing something I would regret later on, but it’s worth it.

Perhaps I am a lot more cynical than I was at the start, however I still start out by looking for the good in people. I haven’t changed in that respect. But in games in WoW when you have so many diverse people with nothing in common playing together there will always be jerks. I’ve never encountered a guild which was jerkless so it comes down to your enjoyment of the game, raiding etc and the people you do like versus one or two jerks. That’s why I will always advocate ignoring them rather than giving up the rest.

It’s not about letting people behave badly without repercussions, sure that sort of behaviour gets reported to the GM/most sympathetic officer straight away but it is about not responding in the same vein and not leaving a guild you like because of one person. That’s what I mean by ignoring.

No excuse for that kind of behaviour, none whatsoever. I mean, there are a lot of ways he could have addressed the ‘issue’ with you, and telling you to shut the fuck up over Vent was totally not one of them. It doesn’t matter whether you were being “too sensitive” or whatever, it doesn’t matter what sort of person you are, it’s *offensive*, plain and simple, and somebody who thinks nothing about laying into a guildie like that can be no asset to a raid.

On the other hand, it seems from the comments, your GM is one it – as any sane GM would be.

update…we kicked that asshole to the curb shortly after his asshole incident. (which, by the way, he refused to accept responsibility for, and tried to convince me that Liala was lying about it. yeah, I am SO sure. good riddance to bad trash.)